Agnes.
He’d promised her he’d be safe. That nothing would happen to him. He opened his eyes again to see his guardsmen above him. One reached for the arrow and the other swiped his hand away.
“Thipped,” he whispered.
“We know,” one of them said. “Don’t talk. We will get you inside and cleaned up.”
“Agneth,” he whispered trying to tell them to keep her safe.
He closed his eyes again as the pain raged through his body. He knew of a few poisons favored for tipping arrows, the worst being nightshade. He prayed it was something lesser and that they could help him in time. That he had not lost consciousness was promising. Perhaps they meant it as a warning and to scare him.
His body was lifted onto something hard. Many people shouted around him as he opened and closed his eyes trying to stay awake. The pain in his shoulder and thigh had gotten so bad it threatened to make him lose his guts.
Once in the great hall he recognized they had placed him on the table. Neville entered then and that was when he saw her. The horror on her beautiful face when she spied the state of him was something he would never forget. She ran to him and took his hand into hers.
He tried to speak but no words would form as another wave of pain ripped through him. Agnes squeezed his hand and mopped his brow with a cloth. From where she’d found it, he did not know. His shirt was ripped off as was one side of his trews. So many people were yelling and he just wanted to sleep. He couldn’t understand what they wanted of him.
Finally, one person’s words got through.
“You will not break your promise to me,” Agnes said. “Do you hear me? You will not die on me.”
He tried to nod, but the pain was unbearable. It hurt to think. There was no way he could speak.
“William, look at me,” she said as she shook him. “Look at me!”
He opened his eyes and stared into her beautiful tear-filled eyes gazing back at him with so much fear and pain. He wanted to replace it with joy and happiness. He had to fight this evil raging through his body, and he would do it for her!
“William, they have to remove the arrow. Keep your focus on me. I am here with you and will see you through this.”
Barely able to comprehend her words, he saw black when they pulled the arrow through his shoulder. Something wet splattered across his face then he felt a great pressure above and below his shoulder. Agnes mopped his brow again. He couldn’ttell if he was bathed with sweat or blood. But what had landed in his mouth was metallic, signifying the latter.
“One more, William,” Agnes said. “Look at me again, William. Hold my hand tighter, as tight as you can.”
He was as weak as a kitten. He tried to do as she asked, but his strength left him as fast as the blood pouring from him.
When they pulled the next arrow through, he saw stars. And not the pleasant kind he’d seen when overcome with pleasure. These burst behind his eyes, and he turned his head and retched to the side away from his wife.
More pressure on his thigh and shoulder left him hanging on by a thread.
“That’s good. You did it, William. You will recover now. Aye, keep pressure hard on both wounds,” she said to someone else. Then back to him, “We have to move you now, William. We will be as gentle as we can, but you have to stay awake. You have to listen to my voice and stay awake. Do you understand?”
The next sound he heard was his mother’s shrieks.
“No. No. No,” she screamed as they passed by to make their way to his chamber. His eyes opened and closed as he held Agnes’s hand, focusing on the sound of her voice.
She cooed to him, praising his bravery and strength. She told him she loved him and that she would not leave his side no matter what. He believed her. And he believed she loved him. That one thing would see him through. He would fight this, and he would survive to grow old with her and have many bairns. That was the life he was supposed to have, the life he would have, and nothing, no damned rebel would take that from him.
William turned his head to look at her as they placed him on his bed and servants came in with water and cloths to clean his wounds. True to her word, Agnes did not leave his side and gently stroked his forehead with a damp cloth. People came in and out of the chamber, but he kept his focus on her.
Slowly after a time the pain eased a little and his body relaxed; she urged him to drink a cup of something warm and bitter, and within a short time slumber creeped upon him. He fell into a deep sleep with his wife by his side not knowing if he’d ever wake.
Chapter Fifteen
She endured ahellish night. William had developed a high fever and no amount of cool cloths would bring it down. Somewhere after midnight the old lady who insisted to be called Nan arrived with a satchel filled with different vials and bunches of dried plants. Her bag of tricks, she’d called it. Neville had left for the village not long after they’d settled William into their chamber. He told her that the chamber and the castle would be guarded and to let no one except for him and the old lady enter.
Agnes helped Nan mix and stir her ingredients all the while the old lady singing old tunes Agnes had never heard. Old Gael’s tunes, she told her while they tried to position William so they could pour some in his mouth. He spurted and sputtered, but eventually managed to get two cups of the mixture that oddly had little smell into him.
“And now we wait,” Nan said.
